Join the Neopoet online poetry workshop and community to improve as a writer, meet fellow poets, and showcase your work. Sign up, submit your poetry, and get started.

Election results

We would like to cordially welcome the new members of the Administrative Council:

weirdelf, Chair
BlueDemon77
Geezer

Please join us in congratulating the new AC and wishing them the best for the upcoming term.

Comments

for all those who enjoy this day
the task which by all standards is difficult
we all can say

loved

Thankyou those who voted, whoever you voted for. Participation is the keystone of all democratic processes.

I will do the best job I can.

cheers,
Jess
A new workshop on the most important element of poetry-
'Rhythm and Meter in Poetry'
https://www.neopoet.com/workshop/rhythm-and-meter-poetry

I wish you all the very best and hope you have a calm and peaceful term having been there are done that before I know how much work it can be

sincerely Jayne-Chloe

“The world is full of magic things, patiently waiting for our senses to grow sharper.” — W.B. Yeats

Wish all the best to Neo. Keep the good job UP gentles!

❤❤❤❤❤❤

Poetry is when an emotion has found its thought and the thought has found words
........Robert Frost☺

Please follow me on Instagram
https://instagram.com/poetry.jo?igshid=YmMyMTA2M2Y=

I'm sure you will all do a good job............stan

Best to each and everyone.

There is usefulness in comparison, sometimes....I'd love to see Neopoet return to its former glory...I know this sentiment will not sit right with some; however, if you were to be honest......?

~Anna

Any suggestions?

cheers,
Jess
A new workshop on the most important element of poetry-
'Rhythm and Meter in Poetry'
https://www.neopoet.com/workshop/rhythm-and-meter-poetry

Look forward to a great Neopoet site,
Ain't there any place for a guest lady,
to bring some stability to your group lol.
Yours Ian.T

.
There are a million reasons to believe in yourself,
So find more reasons to believe in others..

and welcome! Nice to come back and recognize a few "faces"!
Best of luck!

Bonitaj

Maybe all the participants that created the *former glory* will never return...that energy was unique. However, it all depends on the energy we bring to this or any poetry site or live reading. How much truth can *I* handle? How does *my* poetry speak? To whom? Why?

Is it only self-indulgence? Is it only to entertain? Is there a deeper need for/of self that translates to *other*?

Can we raise our own vibrations via interaction and being able to see the glass half-full AND half-empty without having to take *sides*?

Questions for which I have no answers for *you*. For me, Neopoet devolved when people were being chastised left and right. It has become a lukewarm watered-down unimaginative site,
rewriting the same poems, no matter the *workshop*. I maybe wrong not spending all my time here. But when I skim through the poems, I think, *so what else is new*?

And please remember sweet-talking was never one of my *attributes*. And sometimes someone is needed to shake us out of complacency, mediocrity. None of us is immune from this.

~Anna

Being shaken out of one's complacency is not the same as being personally attacked. I don't think Neo has Ever officially chastized anybody for making their views known as long as they did so within the stated site guidelines. All that aside, there's nothing wrong with argument as long as it remains pertinent and limited to the poetry and not the poet. Anybody who knows of a way to keep personal attacks from escalating into all out wars should share the secret with the rest of us.

So anybody who wants to be blunt and painfully honest should do so but then remember the guidelines are in place because nobody has come up with a better alternative yet........................stan

I'm sure ya'll will do a fine job !!!

Richard

I've been *personally attacked* over the net countless times. I still live and thrive. Both in my personal life and in my teaching/poetry endeavors..

But then again, in a past life I probably would have been tortured and burned at the stake for being a heretic if not a witch.

Sorry, but what I saw perhaps was not *Ann Landers manners 101* or *Roberts Rules*, though an *honest* dialogue venturing into *unknown territory*. Aren't you all paying one hefty price for complacency and by-the-book political correctness...boredom and *yawn* poetry?

Sorry to upset the applecart, but this is a challenge to the new AEC!

~Anna.

p.s. For *your edification* if I didn't *care*, I wouldn't stop in to see you once in awhile, or offer a challenge. Maybe some of you think *what is she talking about*--who weren't around a couple of years ago, maybe some of you just don't give a damn and you have somewhere to post your poems, but are you getting honest feedback, real help? Is someone *growing* your *poet*ential?

The quality, honesty and rigour of feedback goes in cycles here, it slumps for a while, then a workshop or people acting independently drag it back up again. It is a constant struggle and requires vigilance from all who care about poetry and this place. It has never again sunk to the depths of the 'sewing circle' that used to drive me spare, then again it hasn't reached the heights of Neopoets heyday either.

I personally will never cease the struggle. The only way we can encourage brave original poetry is with brave, honest critique.

cheers,
Jess
A new workshop on the most important element of poetry-
'Rhythm and Meter in Poetry'
https://www.neopoet.com/workshop/rhythm-and-meter-poetry

We'll do it.

cheers,
Jess
A new workshop on the most important element of poetry-
'Rhythm and Meter in Poetry'
https://www.neopoet.com/workshop/rhythm-and-meter-poetry

Thank you Jess. Vigilance is always key. And nothing was ever as anti-poet as the *sewing circle*, we're all too familiar with.

The irony is that with *brave, honest critique*, everyone benefits except petulant egos.

Much love to you and to all at Neopoet. Part of my heart will always remain here.

~Anna

The old "sewing circle" didn't do much in the way of bringing about rapid improvement in individual poets. But it Did make a lot of timid new-comers feel at ease. Just as a few of the people no longer here Did encourage rapid change in some writers' works but then they also led to many folks who had potential to leave this site for good.

The challenge for any AC is to find that precarious balance between allowing spirited debate and permitting one or two people to drag the site into war and chaos in which true critique is lost among the acrimony...........stan

we can welcome people, support them and be honest. The sewing circle did only harm by dishonestly praising everything. No wriggle room here, they were crap poets, crap critiquers and did the site nothing but harm, they are gone and good riddance. Anyone who can't handle honesty in critique is not a poet and has no place on this site. Yes, some tender-hearted ego-inflated arseholes might leave, they will find a place on other sites and stagnate in their own mediocrity. Good on them.

Let them not drag us down.

cheers,
Jess
A new workshop on the most important element of poetry-
'Rhythm and Meter in Poetry'
https://www.neopoet.com/workshop/rhythm-and-meter-poetry

Your good friend Cat was a member of the so-called "Sewing Circle", as was Lou, Chrys, and often, myself. Are we all crappy poets?

or any official membership for the 'sewing circle'. It was a generic term for people who unfailing gave flowery praise regardless of the poem. Cat, Lou and Chrys often gave constructive critical feedback.

And all four of you are fine poets.

cheers,
Jess
A new workshop on the most important element of poetry-
'Rhythm and Meter in Poetry'
https://www.neopoet.com/workshop/rhythm-and-meter-poetry

Great members

*Collaborative Poetry Workshop* American Version of Japanese Poetry ~ Renga ~ Haiku, Senyru, Tanka.

Neopoet Community

Congratulations to you all.
Give of your best.Cheers!

Please tell me then, who was the sewing circle if not all of us when we weren't engaged in writing, discussing or critiquing with the best of intentions--THE POETRY! NOT the WRITER....either by taking things personally or disingenuously offering praise for trite, repetitious, or unimaginative poetry..

However, I get the *different strokes for different folks* aspect of writing, reading and critiquing. Some of us are not even honest with ourselves.

~A

I was referring to a gaggle, a brood of members who praised without critique and got their feathers ruffled, pecked and squawked whenever anyone did offer honest critique. And like most conservatives they formed a powerful, moralising lobby.

It seems to me, Anna, your beef with Neopoet is that some people could be suspended for being arseholes. I thoroughly agreed with most of my suspensions, although I admit they all stemmed from my behaviour in chat.

I've checked out the site you've gone to and the poetry is no better and the critique is lesser. Get over not getting your own way with your "no censure at any cost" belief.

People come and go from all sites. Some good and lousy and despicable members have left this one. We are now endeavouring to make all welcome without sacrificing our basic tenet- critique don't comment.

cheers,
Jess
A new workshop on the most important element of poetry-
'Rhythm and Meter in Poetry'
https://www.neopoet.com/workshop/rhythm-and-meter-poetry

Ok, Jess. I hear you.

Best wishes to all.

~Anna

(c) Neopoet.com. No copyright is claimed by Neopoet to original member content.